J Martin Littlejohn was a person who stood literally and figuratively shoulder to shoulder with the founder of osteopathy, A T Still. A proud presbyterian Scot who made his career and reputation in the USA, only to have it questioned and discredited after returning to pursue his osteopathic practice in London, Littlejohn was a controversial character. Undoubtedly a pioneer in establishing osteopathic medicine both in the USA and in the UK, he was also a fraud, using contentious qualifications to promote his academic and scientific credibility. No one has been able to write a comprehensive study of Littlejohn until now. John O'Brien has spent years researching the man. Using the objective eye of a professional historian, he has visited the institutions of Littlejohn's life and career, in Northern Ireland, Chicago, Illinois and Kirksville, Missouri, and the National Osteopathic Archive in London, as well as holding interviews with Littlejohn's family in the UK. He was granted access to previously unseen historic material as well as personal family mementos and photographs. This book will be read by anyone with an interest in the history of osteopathy. It gives a thorough description of the life and work of J Martin Littlejohn, with a broad analysis of how and why he took the major decisions to affect his career, for good or bad. And of course the consequences of those decisions, which had a major influence on the development of osteopathy in the 20th century. Key points: * 30 photographs, some previously unseen * Author access to previously unseen archives * Contributions from Littlejohn's family

Cal King had it all: charm, affability, a body chiseled by rigorous workouts, and a successful career as a financial service executive. But that all changed dramatically during the first week of August in 2000. On a business trip to Chicago, he contracted Legionnaire's Disease.

Within a few dreadful days of contracting the disease, he narrowly escaped death, lost the ability to speak, and saw his rising star plummet. "Never Better" narrates the story of his efforts to overcome the devastating effects of this disease, including speech impairment, a weakened body, and depression that threatened to consume his life.

It is the story of his single-minded determination to talk, resume his career as a successful call center executive, and rise above the hurtful looks from people who believed he was mentally-challenged in the wake of Legionnaire's Disease. "Never Better" demonstrates the importance of faith, perseverance, and bravery. It reveals the inner spirit of a man destined to overcome nearly insurmountable odds to find new meaning in his life.

Sophie Moen suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis and was in a wheelchair for ten years. Desperately seeking a solution, she called upon Dr. Ernie Pellegrino, who suggested joint replacement. After several surgeries, Sophie was able to walk again. This is just one of the medical success stories that author Ernie Pellegrino experienced in more than three decades of medical service. Narrated in a memoir format, "A Doctor's Path" includes emotionally touching examples of the selfless dedication a number of physicians demonstrate to patients. It marvels at patients who have endured incredible disabilities and their willingness to take the risks needed to improve their lives. Not all medical stories, however, have happy endings. Pellegrino gives rare insight into the people and events in his profession. His frank approach exposes some of the shameful individuals and activities that take place in patient care. He's not afraid to confront those he believes have violated the Hippocratic Oath-to practice medicine to the best of their ability and do no harm. Providing fourteen lessons, "A Doctor's Path" helps us understand the limitations of doctors and the medical practice, and demonstrates the will of doctors to nurture and serve humanity.

What would you do with a second life? That's the question that Channing S. Jun, a young medical student from Kanggye, North Korea, found himself asking after a series of unlikely events spared him from certain death at the hands of communist agents during the fall of Seoul, South Korea. Tragically separated from his home and family by the Korean War, Jun embarks on a remarkable journey that brings him from the battlefields of Korea to the United States of the 1950's. With only his mother's teaching to guide him, the penniless medical student overcomes countless obstacles to become a successful American surgeon. From Korea to New Orleans, New York to Texas then North Dakota and finally Georgia, "A Tiger's Hide" takes us along Dr. Jun's exciting journey toward his ultimate American success story. You'll find his recollections delightful and inspiring as he challenges us to savor life and leave behind our own legacy of service and devotion.

Gene Kranz was present at the creation of America's manned space program and was a key player in it for three decades. As a flight director in NASA's Mission Control, Kranz witnessed firsthand the making of history. He participated in the space program from the early days of the Mercury program to the last Apollo mission, and beyond. He endured the disastrous first years when rockets blew up and the United States seemed to fall further behind the Soviet Union in the space race. He helped to launch Alan Shepard and John Glenn, then assumed the flight director's role in the Gemini program, which he guided to fruition. With his teammates, he accepted the challenge to carry out President John F. Kennedy's commitment to land a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s.

Kranz was flight director for both Apollo 11, the mission in which Neil Armstrong fulfilled President Kennedy's pledge, and Apollo 13. He headed the Tiger Team that had to figure out how to bring the three Apollo 13 astronauts safely back to Earth. (In the film "Apollo 13, " Kranz was played by the actor Ed Harris, who earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance.)

In "Failure Is Not an Option, " Gene Kranz recounts these thrilling historic events and offers new information about the famous flights. What appeared as nearly flawless missions to the Moon were, in fact, a series of hair-raising near misses. When the space technology failed, as it sometimes did, the controllers' only recourse was to rely on their skills and those of their teammates. Kranz takes us inside Mission Control and introduces us to some of the whiz kids -- still in their twenties, only a few years out of college -- who had to figure it all out as they went along, creating a great and daring enterprise. He reveals behind-the-scenes details to demonstrate the leadership, discipline, trust, and teamwork that made the space program a success.

Finally, Kranz reflects on what has happened to the space program and offers his own bold suggestions about what we ought to be doing in space now.

This is a fascinating firsthand account written by a veteran mission controller of one of America's greatest achievements.

There is no necessary relationship between fame and power, and great influence is often wielded in willful obscurity. So it was with the irascible, indomitable Eugene Fubini. A physics prodigy who fled Italy when the fascists came to power, his searing intelligence and relentless determination lifted him from obscurity to the highest levels of the Pentagon. Indifferent to anything but results, Fubini worked behind the scenes to shape the strategy and substance of his adopted country's post-World War II defense. Along the way he exerted enormous influence over the development of radar, the rise of the military-industrial complex, the Space Race, and many of the other signature events and movements of mid-twentieth-century American geopolitics. But even as his unbending determination to do things his way earned him the admiration of his colleagues, it left him feared and isolated within his own family. "Let Me Explain" is a portrait of a man whose unwillingness and inability to compromise paid enormous rewards, and extracted a heavy emotional price. David G. Fubini is a director of McKinsey & Company, Inc. in Boston, Massachusetts. For more than a decade he was the managing director of the Boston office, and led the firm's activities in New England. Prior to joining McKinsey, David was an initial member of a small group that became the McNeil Consumer Products Company of Johnson & Johnson. David received a degree in business administration with honors from the University of Massachusetts, and a master's degree in business administration, with distinction, from Harvard University. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts with his wife, Bertha Rivera, and their four children.

Even now, nineteen years after my son's injury, I feel my praying for a miracle was answered. Dan's faith in believing has been astounding. The insight of his spiritual belief, I realize, was based from his youth. Dan was a happy child. He sets goals early on; his bravery has been so inspiring, for he had many crosses to bear when his life was changed dramatically. Instead of his family assuring him, it was him who assured us that God had a purpose. He transformed what he believed by proving his confidence in doing and by a living faith. It easily could have been farewell to farming, but he proved to himself and to others he could fulfill his long-time dream of farming. He looked to the bright side with "I can" instead of "I can't," by staying true to his vision and keeping focus on tomorrow and moving toward larger visions. I, myself, had to learn all over to what one would say, letting go. There was not an hour in twenty-four I didn't worry. By mere osmosis, I absorb the craft of letting Dan have an open road just as I did in his young youth. He proved paralysis is a choice and that what ifs are a waste of time.

If there's one thing author Paul Sybert knows well, it's the act of living life in the face of adversity. In "The Kindness of Strangers," Sybert shares his life story and shows how he has confronted his fears and troubles and placed his trust in Jesus Christ.

This memoir shares some of the most important moments in his life, as well as the tribulations that have tested him. "The Kindness of Strangers" recalls some of the most important events of Sybert's life-being baptized at age twelve, earning a bachelor's degree in engineering, experiencing divorce and the loss of love, struggling with an alcohol addiction, appreciating the gift of a spiritual mother, and surviving a stroke.

But most of all, Sybert shares how God has worked in his life. Through anecdotes and illustrations, he communicates the importance of maintaining a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. "The Kindness of Strangers" offers insight into the life of a man who faced his fear and persevered.

By addressing the enigma of the exceptional success of Hungarian emigrant scientists and telling their life stories, Brilliance in Exile combines scholarly analysis with fascinating portrayals of uncommon personalities. Istvan and Balazs Hargittai discuss the conditions that led to five different waves of emigration of scientists from the early twentieth century to the present. Although these exodes were driven by a broad variety of personal motivations, the attraction of an open society with inclusiveness, tolerance, and - needless to say - better circumstances for working and living, was the chief force drawing them abroad. While emigration from East to West is a general phenomenon, this book explains why and how the emigration of Hungarian scientists is distinctive. The high number of Nobel Prizes among this group is only one indicator. Multicultural tolerance, a quickly emerging, considerably Jewish, urban middle class, and a very effective secondary school system were positive legacies of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Multiple generations, shaped by these conditions, suffered from the increasingly exclusionist, intolerant, antisemitic, and economically stagnating environment, and chose to go elsewhere. "I would rather have roots than wings, but if I cannot have roots, I shall use wings," explained Leo Szilard, one of the fathers of the Atom Bomb.

An active pastor, husband, father, and triathlete, Bob Molsberry was nearly killed in 1997 in a hit and run accident on a rural highway. After a long period of recovery and rehabilitation, he is a paraplegic who has remained active in family, ministry, and athletics. The book reflects on his experience of disability not as a medical condition in search of a cure, nor as a tragedy to be pitied, but as a cross-cultural adventure similar to learning to live in a foreign country. Molsberry also offers biblical and theological reflection that confronts the Bible's perspectives on disability that it is a matter of heroic suffering or miraculous cure, and often interpreted as a consequence of sin.

A compassionate physician sets sail in a stormy sea of small town politics, striving to help his patients and the community while battling city hall with a sharp wit and stubborn determination. This writing is the true account of Dr. Martin Jones' last days of medical practice as a general practitioner in Granite Falls, a small community located in the foothills of western North Carolina.